I had a new experience this month. Somebody, probably a professor of education, referred to me in a comment as "just a novelist."

Who uses a phrase like that as an insult? Just a stockbroker. Just a doctor. Just a  carpenter. Just an artist. Just a poet. Why would those things be bad?

 So I immediately thought: this is a flimsy and desperate insult. A little mind at work.

 Then I thought about it some more. Anybody who can write a novel, even a bad one, can organize 300, 400, 500 pages. That person is smart and can probably get a Masters in any school of education without much effort. We need more people like that in education, which is known for not attracting A students.

 But here's my big insight. A writer, any kind of writer, is a person who loves language, culture, civilization. It's precisely people from the arts and humanities that we need more of in the schools.

 What we don't need are petty technocrats steeped in just one tiny area: weird ed theory. Such people will go off the  educational deep end but not even know it.

 Well, that tiny insult inspired an article called "The Education Establishment: just a bunch of tricksters." 

http://www.rightsidenews.com/life-and-science/health-and-education/...